In his writing, Plato asks everyone to imagine humans as prisoners kept from childhood in a deep, dark cave. They have chains around their necks to keep them facing forward while a fire from behind them projects shadows on the wall in front of them. These shadows act as the only real thing that they have ever come across (Plato). After one prisoner is set free and able to turn around, he becomes very confused of what is behind him. The prisoner is at a loss since he cannot differentiate between the reality that was unexpectedly presented to him and the one he had grown up with.…
In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, we are shown different motifs of mental imprisonment against physical imprisonment. In his play the prisoners are chained in the cave and only able to see the shadows. But once, one of the prisoners was freed and he had no understanding of how to function in the outside world and wanted to go back to the cave but forced to go to the outside world. We see this in real life when we look at the American educational system; in High school students are told what to learn, how to learn, and not to go against superiors; When their growing. That is true that they will never forget this in their whole life.…
I think that the main points illustrated by Plato's Allegory of the Cave are that people only know what they experience and only choose to accept what they have experienced, people who have knowledge have a responsibility to share it and that ignorance is bliss. The men trapped in the cave demonstrate how people will only believe what they have experienced by shunning the man who tries to tell them of the outside world. They aren't willing to accept that there is more to life than the wall and shadows in front of them. Plato believes that even the world we live in may just be another wall that is blocking us from seeing the truth.…
In “Allegory of The Cave,” philosopher Plato explains to his student, Glaucon, that there are prisoners in a den tied up and have never been able to turn their bodies nor their heads to see what is behind them: a blazing fire. The prisoners can only see a wall and the shadows casted from the objects that pass along front of the fire (583). The shadows are the only truth the prisoners know since they have never been exposed to anything outside the cave. Plato further explains saying “To them... the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images” (584).…
In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave there are prisoners that have been tied down since birth. In this cave the prisoners are facing a wall in which they only see the shadows of what is…
Socrates was a Greek philosopher and the main source of Western thought. Little is known of his life except what was recorded by his students, including Plato. In Book I of Plato’s “The Republic”, Socrates and Glaucon were ‘asked’ to join Polemarchus along with Adeimantus and others at Polemarchus’ house (sp. 327-328c). Even though he was coerced into this discussion, Socrates shared his knowledge with the assembly.…
In “The Allegory of the Cave,” Plato uses shadows as a metaphor to show deception and limited information. In Plato’s story, there are many prisoners in a cave. They are chained so they can’t move and all they can see are the shadows that are cast onto the wall in front of the prisoners by puppeteers. The shadows are not real objects, but the prisoners believe that they are because those shadows are all they know and see everyday. This metaphor that the shadows, illustrated by Plato, can still be seen in today’s society in the media, the government, and the deception of other people.…
The Allegory of the Cave is an intensely influential philosophical work by Plato, a philosopher in Classical Greece. It comes from a larger dialogue called The Republic which is spoken from the point of view of Socrates, Plato’s teacher. Plato writes in the allegory about how humans can come to knowledge and about reality. Not too long after his time period, Christianity came into existence. Christianity is based on the teachings and work of Jesus.…
Throughout all of the readings we’ve gone through this quarter, I’ve noticed they’ve all seemed to have a sense of realness to them. They each face issues or situations that people actually go through on a day to day basis, or have gone through in the past. I’m sure I’m probably missing the point entirely, but after much thought, “Reality” is what I’ve narrowed it down to. Of the 25+ poems and other literature we’ve read and experienced over the past 9 weeks, I feel they are ultimately based off real life. When we read “Allegory of the Cave”, we learned about perception and truth.…
In Plato's allegory of The Cave. There is a cave with a fire at one end a trench and wall some prisoners chained to that way and then another wall. The prisoners in this cave are chained in such a way as to force them only to have the ability to see the wall directly in front of them. On this wall, they look at the shadows of objects that they have given names and sounds too These shadows make up their only view of reality. The shadows themselves are cast by the light of the fire onto figurines and puppets being held up above the wall by people walking along the trench.…
The Allegory of the Cave is a hypothesis put into perspective by Plato, regarding human awareness. In the short story a group of prisoners have been confined in a cavern ever since birth with no knowledge of the outside world. They are chained facing a wall unable to turn their heads. While a fire behind them gives off a faint light. Sometimes people pass by carrying figures of animals and other objects that cast shadows on the wall.…
In this allegory, prisoners that have been locked up their entire lives facing a stone wall, only seeing shadows and hearing voices. Then one prisoner is suddenly freed and experiences light, stars, water, and life for the first time and is amazed. Plato then describes the denial of the prisoners when writing, “He will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive someone saying to him that what he saw before was an illusion” (Plato, 33). The prisoners in the Cave became so comfortable with their state of being, when the freed one shared his experiences with them they shunned him because it disrupts their reality. Plato writes that, “the business of us who are the founders of the State will be to compel the best minds to attain the knowledge which we have already shown to be the greatest of all- they ascend until they arrive at the good” (Plato, 37).…
In the Allegory of The Cave, Plato depicts a cave where prisoners are strapped into chairs facing a wall. There is a fire burning behind them, and in front of the fire there are puppets which throw shadows on the wall. The shadows on the wall are the prisoners reality, and they have no desire to leave because they know nothing better. If a prisoner were to escape from the chair, he would see the fire and it would hurt his eyes. So he would turn back to the shadows that are easy for him to look at.…
In Plato’s “ Allegory of the Cave,” Plato describes the cave as very dark with chained prisoners in front of a fire observing shadow of things. The shadows are the only “reality” they know. Outside the cave, there is “light” and the “truth”. A prisoner in the cave wanted freedom. But the prisoners could not get out.…
Allegory of the Cave” is a philosophical parable or analogy from Plato’s The Republic, written around 380 BC. Exploring themes of knowledge, perception, and the importance of education, it takes the form of a discussion between Plato’s brother, Glaucon, and his teacher and mentor, Socrates. Although this dialogue was almost certainly scripted by Plato, it is not clear whether the idea itself is Plato’s own or his record of Socrates’s thoughts. The allegory begins with Plato’s Socrates describing a group of humans held in a deep, dark cave. They have been imprisoned there since childhood, their necks and legs bound so they cannot turn to see themselves, each other, or the rest of the cave.…